Abstract revelations

Photograher's diffuse portraits surge with color and emotion

Photograher's diffuse portraits surge with color and emotion

April 14, 2006|JEREMY D. BONFIGLIO Tribune Staff Writer

BENTON HARBOR -- Steve Hidinger doesn't worry about holding his camera steady. In fact, the Colorado photographer is more interested in what happens when he doesn't. Movement is at the heart of Hidinger's experimental, abstract photographs. "It provides an element of chance and randomness of how they are going to turn out," Hidinger says. That element of chance is prevalent in "Beneath," an exhibition of Hidinger's photographs on display through May 31 at the Synapse Gallery and Center for Photography at The Livery in Benton Harbor. The 12 images are each defined by movement, color and light, a combination the 34-year-old artist learned at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Hidinger, who has a bachelor's degree in film studies, a bachelor's degree in fine arts, and a master's degree in electronic media, all from Colorado, studied under Stan Brakage and Phil Soloman. Hidinger credits the two men for inspiring him to experiment with techniques and processes on celluloid. "It was Stan who really showed me how to paint on film strips," Hidinger says. He uses the technique to great effect in "Beneath." Hidinger projects hand-painted slides onto living subjects, who are then photographed using long exposures and mixed emulsions fused into a singular frame of film. The result is a form of abstract portraiture. Individual subjects become skinless, replaced by a swirl of contrasting colors that exposes emotion like an X-ray reveals bone. Hidinger then prints the final photograph onto transparencies, known as Fujitrans, and displays them in light boxes. "Given that they were created with light," Hidinger says, "I figured using light to display them just makes sense." In this collection of 20-by-16-inch photographs, "Sin Tomorrow 2005" is the most striking. A man's forearm points skyward as a cool mixture of blues and greens rises up his hand. The calm colors turn violent as bright upshoots of reds, oranges and yellows engulf the fingers and the subject's obscured face. The reds resemble flames. The blues, water just out of reach. It's a visceral image. "I wanted the blues and reds to provide different emotions," Hidinger says. "I think it adds to the hellishness of that image." Although the subject may be less clear in "Twilight 2006," the technique is just as effective. A swirl of blue, green and aqua rises into a pattern of reds and golds. At the center, the colors disperse into a deep purple (almost black) hole. Pine tree needles, perhaps a face, appear around this vortex. Still, the object is less important than the core of this illuminated abstract. Both works show a clear distinction in Hidinger's growth as an experimental photographer as well as promising validation of his current direction. Some of his earlier images, however, don't quite capture the same effect. "The Whole Weight 2001" is a more traditional portrait of a woman surrounded by flowers. In this case, the long exposure simply makes the motion-blurred face appear to be a photographic flaw rather than the intentional abstract movement found in his more recent pieces. Still, that's one of the few examples in this collection of Hidinger's technique not reaching its full potential. The majority of the photographs on display are compelling and thought-provoking examples of how abstract art can be achieved in a medium usually reserved to document a more obvious physical landscape. "I'm not trying to capture the representational world," Hidinger says. "There's so much emotion dispersed through color. I want the images to be kinetic and to have feeling." Mission accomplished. Staff Writer Jeremy D. Bonfiglio: jbonfiglio@sbtinfo.com (574) 235-6244